Skretny, Rev. Joseph T.
(Oct. 23, 1865 -- Sept. 4, 1897)
Catholic PriestNo matter what it was, every person who trod on American soil did something, and whether we know it, or much less care, is another matter. Rev. Jozef Skretny is a microcosm of a phenomenon that displayed itself in his time.
When he was born in Niezychowa, in northwestern Poland, though part of Prussia since 1772, his parents, Wojciech and Anna (Nowak) Skretny, had no trouble with transacting their affairs in Polish and raising their children on a farm. Little is known of families of the same name. Without details, Professor Rymut noted in 1990 that 37 of the 61 Skretny families in Poland were in the voivodship of Skierniewice, halfway between Warsaw and Lodz, and he said the name came from skret, which means noose, rope, line, or bend, in Polish.
The making of a Catholic priest in the Skretny clan is not well known. It all began when the first chancellor of the German Empire, Otto von Bismarck, wanted to cut off the enthralling power of Pope Pius the Ninth and enacted laws to destroy Polish churches and schools. By edict he excluded Jesuit priests and missionaries from reading Mass, serving sacraments, and doing priestly and scholastic functions. By the end of 1873 the Society of Jesus religious order was as scarce in Germany as rattlesnakes in Ireland. The exodus of Jesuits to the United States made it possible to a certain extent for the rapid influx of Polish immigrants in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and other states to establish their own parishes. No priests more than Jesuits traveled back and forth across the continent to deliver the message of God. Hence the Poles built churches faster than other groups. By 1878 the Polish families in Baltimore, Maryland, were sorely in need of their own church and priest.
Meanwhile, back in the old country the same year, Jozef Skretny enrolled in the gymnasium at Pila, once in a dense pine forest and half destroyed by a fire in 1781, where the use of the Polish language was banned. Eventually, after his sixth year, the school itself was closed. Teachers, priests and bishops who did not comply with Bismarck's anti Catholic kulturkampf were arrested or removed from their positions. Skretny mourned the loss of his teacher.
Scores of schools were left vacant. Fortunately not the gymnasium in Wagrowiec, 50 km from Poznan, where Jakub Wujek, who translated the Bible into the Polish language, was born in 1541. Skretny went there for two years. The outlook for him was bleak. No Catholic seminaries were open for the education of young men in his homeland. As a matter of fact, from the spring of 1875 to the spring of 1878, the Polish Catholics in Bismarck's country had no religious freedom. The one-legged chancellor, who himself spoke Polish, dissolved all Polish religious orders. More than 800 churches had no services. Bismarck had complete control of the Catholic schools. There was scarcely a Polish parish that didn't mourn the loss of its shepherd.
The Skretny family missed their son when he left his native country and went to Louvain, in Belgium, to prepare for the priesthood. He was ordained on June 29, 1890, and answered the call of Cardinal Gibbons in Baltimore to assume the duties of a curate at St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church, where he worked untirely to the end of his life. He was an assistant to Father Rodowicz, who tore down the first edifice, a two-story affair, with a school on the lower floor and the church upstairs, and in its place built a new one of handsome red brick, trimmed with Ohio sandstone. The magnificent church, opened on Feb. 16, 1886, and thousands of parishioners, awaited the new curate. The church, twice as long as the first one, seated 900 persons.
For five years Father Skretny kept the trying and varied activities of a curate mostly to himself. The long rides between homes, the difficulties of dealing with parishioners, the lack of regular meals, all these took a toll on his body. Father Rodowicz, too. The congregation of 5,000 was hardly prepared for the deaths of Revs. Rodowicz and Skretny within a short time of each other. Father Skretny was appointed pastor of St. Stanislaus parish after the death of Father Rodowicz on May 9, 1896. Father Skretny himself died September 4, 1897, of inflammation of the stomach at the rectory.
He was laid to rest in Baltimore, a city with a special place in the memories of Poles, and endowed with a rich history. It was where General Pulaski reviewed his historic legion for the first time in 1778 and the first Polish Jesuits in the United States met Bishop John Carroll. The last St. Stanislaus Catholic Church, one and a quarter bigger than tha first house of worship of Polish Catholics, and the first Polish newspapers of Baltimore no longer exist. What remains of Rev. Jozef Skretny's legacy hasn't captured the attenton of a lot of people. With the closing of the church, it is the St. Stanislaus cemetery and the people buried there that will preserve their history. Each grave has its own story. For every burial, another obituary was written. All of the obituaries, including those of past shepherds of St. Stanislaus parish, would make a beautiful book, filled with the seeds of truth, goodness, piety, love, or whatever, and grow in value with the passage of time. There's probably no easier way to tell the story of the first Polish parish in Maryland than to visit its burying ground and study the names on the graves. They still continue to bury former members of the parish in the cemetery.
Unfortunately, finding the headstone on Father Skretny's grave is not enough. The Baltimore American noted that after the holy services the casket was borne to the front door of St. Stanislaus Catholic Church by six visiting priests, and six others carried it from the door to the hearse of Michael Sadowski and Felix Brzozkowski, who were the undertakers, and at St. Stanislaus Cemetery, where the remains of Father Skretny were deposited among other priests, another set of priests carried the casket to the grave.
In much more detail, the obituary in Przyjaciel Domu, issued weekly by Rev. Mieczyslaw Barabasz, pastor of Holy Rosary church, who anointed and eulogized Father Skretny, described the funeral from the moment the body of Father Skretny was placed on a catafalque to the graveside ceremonies. It included the ringing of the church bells, the dirges sung by priests, Cardinal Gibbons in the chancel, surrounded by the officials of the holy services and separated from throngs of weeping people in the pews by a railing. Rev. Stanislaus Nawrocki, pastor of St. Mary of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Chicago, celebrated the Solemn Requiem Mass and was assisted by Father Joseph Dulski, of Holy Rosary Church, deacon, and Father G. H. Dirkes, of St. Thomas Church in Hampden, Md., subdeacon. Rev. Andrew Duszynski, pastor of a poor Polish parish in Curtis Bay who came from Poland with his parents in 1881, was master of ceremonies.
"The procession was magnicent," Father Barabasz wrote in Polish for his newspaper. There aren't enough words to express my thanks to William F. Hoffman, who translated the obituary to English, and Thomas L. Hollowak, who found it in Dziennik Chicagoski. It was not their first collaboration. Hoffman and Hollowak, related to each other by marriage, prepared death indexes of Dziennik Chicagoski, 1890-1929, and Jednosz Polonia, 1926-1946, for the Polish Genealogical Society of America. "Behind musicians in close ranks came the Knights of St. Wladyslaw and the Marksmen of St. Kazimierz, while the Knights of St. Wojciech walked by the hearse as an honor guard. The church organizations all showed their colors: the Brotherhood of Sts. Jozef, Cyril and Methodius, the Youths of St. Stanislaw, as well as organizations from Our Lady of the Holy Rosary parish, the Brotherhood of St. Wojciech, St. Dominik and the Holy Trinity, from which was formed a long line preceding the hearse. The representatives of the women's organizations rode in coaches.
"Before the hearse rode three carriages filled with wreaths, and on the coffin rested a large wreath of laurel leaves and white roses. More than 100 priests, English as well as Polish, took part in the ceremonies.
"After a two-hour procession all arrived at the cemetery, where the grave was already waiting to receive the priest's remains. The Rev. Barabasz conducted the ceremonies at the cemetery, and Rev. T. Misicki (St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr church, Shamokin, Pa.) gave a final farewell oration, after which, amid the clatter of the Knights' armor, the priests' funeral chants, and the funeral march, the body was given back to mother earth. May this foreign ground be restful for him, and may the Savior, whom he so loved here in life and for whom he suffered, receive his soul in eternal glory."
St. Stanislaus, established in 1895, is the oldest of four Polish cemeteries in Baltimore. It has the oldest grave markers. The inscriptions are in Polish and English. Polish Jews, with inscriptions in Hebrew, are buried in a cemetery unto itself. The records of the dead are scattered. One wonders when the caretakers of Polish pride will reawaken the memory of Father Skretny.
Author: Edward Pinkowski (November 1, 2009)
Skretny, Rev. Joseph
Clergyman. Former asst. at St. Stanislaus Kostka parish, Baltimore Md.; from 1896 to 1897 pastor of St. Stanislaus Kostka parish, Baltimore, Md. Died in 1897.
From: "Who's Who in Polish America" by Rev. Francis Bolek, Editor-in-Chief; Harbinger House, New York, 1943